The Mech Touch

At the start of the next day, Ves prepared to hold his second lecture of the week.

Since the lesson content was a part of his Introduction to Living Mech Design course, he deeply wanted it to succeed.

He decided it was unnecessary for him to adopt the strongman image once again, so he traded his Unending Regalia for a more subdued and professional business suit.

"I'm not about to teach another lesson on Frontier Wisdom, so 1 can dispense with the theatrics."

He also had to stand in front of a completely different audience this time. Ves no longer needed to present his case in front of the majority of the entire student body of the Eden Institute.

"Only 14 students, huh?"

Ves actually preferred to start with a smaller and more intimate class. This made it a lot easier to monitor and provide guidance to each and every individual student.

Although the probability was small, Ves would celebrate the emergence of every mech design student that successfully managed to get started with living mechs!

He might not be able to help anyone master the basics of living mech design if he had to supervise a relatively sizable class of 250 students.

In contrast, he felt a lot more confident about helping 2 or 3 of these bright young brats get started in a tiny class of just 14 students!

As Ves went through his morning routine and spent a bit of time with his wife and children, he already started to think about the individual circumstances of each person who enrolled in his Introduction to Living Mech Design course.

He already had an opportunity to observe the enrolled mech design students during his previous lecture. A few of them appeared to possess spiritual potential, though this particular trait was bound to become a lot more common in the future.

Nonetheless, Ves was impatient for success. He ideally wanted to spread his design philosophy sooner rather than later, and it would be best if he focused on the handful of students who already demonstrated a better talent towards extraordinary pursuits than their peers.

"It was a bit difficult to know for sure whether a student has any spiritual potential last time, but it should be a lot easier to make this determination in the upcoming class."

Different from teaching a remote class through the use of conventional physical projection technology, Ves intended to take advantage of the brand-new Hyper Chamber this time.

He did not agree to invest 100 million MTA merits on this high-tech boondoggle just to provide an ideal remote learning environment for his children!

Gloriana knew how important this course was to her husband. She gently patted his shoulder and leaned in to give him a kiss for encouragement.

"Be careful around the Terrans. You may have managed to amaze them in your earlier lecture, but they are still first-raters at heart. You must not grow too complacent and make sure that each of your students benefit from your teachings. If they think that they will not be able to obtain anything useful from your lessons, they may start to issue complaints."

"I'm aware of that, honey. These Terrans expect much from me, but I think I can manage. The subject falls within my core area of specialization, so 1 won't have to worry about running out of stuff to teach."

"Have you met any prominent Terrans yet that our clan can cooperate with in the future?" Gloriana curiously asked. "We will need as much friendly support as possible to ease our entry into the world of first-raters. 1 would love to help in this matter, but the only first-raters that I am familiar with are the Mech Supremacists, and they have become far too preoccupied as of late."

"There isn't a part of the Red Association that has enough free time these days." He muttered.

"Good luck, Ves. I know you can do a good job. It is not too important whether you can forge new partnerships with Terrans. The more time you spend around first-raters, the easier it becomes for you to integrate into their greater community. That is already precious enough."

Once he was ready, he moved to the central section of the Spirit of Bentheim where the Hyper Chamber was located.

Despite having access to it for a while, Ves never took the initiative to make proper use of it. The Hyper Chamber worked best when it established a connection with servers that were designed to accommodate its features.

These servers almost exclusively catered to first-raters, which meant that Ves would stick out like a sore thumb if he appeared all of a sudden.

A lot of virtual communities were also private and hidden from the public. The only way he could get into one of them was to receive an invitation or a referral from an existing member. Perhaps he could get one from Jovy Armalon, but he would have to meet with him first.

As Ves entered the high-tech Hyper Chamber, he took a brief moment of time to look around. The giant chamber was sizable enough to accommodate a large lecture hall as well as a bunch of mechs.

If he wanted to, he could even order the Hyper Chamber to form a small production line and fabricate a mech in a way that allowed his remote students to observe his process with fantastic fidelity!

It might even be possible for him to use the Hyper Chamber to essentially fabricate a complete and proper mech from a distance!

"I'll need to upgrade the Hyper Chamber's functionality to make that possible." He reminded himself.

That was not necessary for the time being.

Ves briefly spent a moment of time on calling up the diagnostics of the Hyper Chamber and confirmed that it was working properly.

He proceeded to form a connection to one of the Eden Institute's classrooms.

The environment around him changed. The cold and hollow metallic chamber made way for a warm wood-paneled classroom environment. Only the floor was made out of tough ceramic tiles that were strong enough to comfortably bear the weight of mechs.

Despite the small number of students that showed up, Ves still chose to hold this lecture in a large classroom because he wanted to show off his living mechs.

In fact, many of the more advanced courses related to mech design tended to be taught in these kinds of spaces because it was important for students to get into frequent contact with mechs at their full scale.

The classroom at least had a setting that dynamically rearranged the amount of seats and their placement according to the specific needs of each class.

Ves had opted to arrange the seats into a small circle. A few students had already arrived a bit earlier and sat next to their closest friends and acquaintances.

Most of the mech design students who initially signed up for this course were fourth-year students. There were a few men and women who were in their third or fifth years of their studies, but they were the exception.

Third-year mech design students were generally far too busy with completing their studies in the core science subjects such as quantum mechanics and materials science.

Fifth-year students had already completed most of their studies and devoted a lot more time on practical courses in preparation to complete their graduation projects.

Alexa Streon strode inside the classroom at one point. Many of the students briefly looked at her with expressions of curiosity.

She wore a modest beige coat that was devoid of any patterns and looke as if she could blend right in with the other young adults.

"Pay no mind to my presence. 1 am here to assist Professor Larkinson and benefit from his teaching as well."

The most powerful student arrived shortly after Alexa took her place behind Ves' projection.

Ryan Shuku floated into the chamber and settled down on the central seat as if he was a sovereign surrounded by his councilors.

Compared to everyone else, Ryan conveyed a much stronger sense of inherent superiority and background. His presence was so strong that nobody seemed to pay attention to the physical projection of their professor anymore!

Yet Ryan was not the student that captivated Ves the most.

Whether it was deliberate or not, Gabriel Sekkar was the last student to enter the classroom.

A lot of students actually expressed surprise that Gabriel had enrolled for this course in the first place.

This was because he was a second-year student!

If that was not already exaggerated enough, he was one of the few students of the Eden Institute who pursued a degree in both mech design and business at the same time!

How could he possibly spare the time to attend classes for yet another non-essential optional course?

There was no need for the heir of the Sekkar Clan to explain himself. His attendance was already enough to explain how confident he was in keeping up with his extremely bloated study schedule.

Ves made a soft clap. "Everyone is here, so let us begin this class. Welcome to Introduction to Mech Design. This is a new and experimental course that aims to introduce you to my primary specialization which also happens to be the field that 1 have pioneered. I have already written this in the course documents, but the main purpose of this course is to develop a thorough familiarity with the traits and general principles of this variation of mechs. It is not required for you to be able to design a living machine as the difficulty is far too great."

An eager-looking student immediately raised his arm.

Ves grinned in response. "I believe I can guess the question that you wish to ask, Mr. Klaus Robar-Fulton. Yes, it is possible for you to be able to design an actual living mech with my guidance, but you will need to fully embrace my teachings and work hard to understand the essence of living mechs. The amount of academic credits that is awarded to you after completing this course cannot encompass all of this additional work. I may turn this condition into a requirement for a future follow-up course, assuming there is enough demand."

It would be better for him to wait until he advanced to Master before he taught an advanced course like this. Masters were able to generalize a part of the essential theories and working principles behind design philosophies into a universal format. This made it a lot easier for other mech designers to quickly master the basics!

Ves would truly be able to pick up a lot of disciples at that point!

Another mech design student raised her arm and asked a question. "Professor, if it is not mandatory for us to design a living mech, then what will we actually gain from completing this course? How will absorbing your teachings improve our own work?"

"That is difficult to say." Ves honestly replied. "It depends on how much you agree with my philosophy and whether you choose to integrate any aspect of it in your own work approach. Generally speaking, you will be able to work with existing living mechs a lot better. You will roughly understand how they work, how they are produced, what it takes to take care of them and how to optimize their growth. Furthermore, you will also be able to form greater synergies if you ever collaborate with mech designers who specialize in this field."

This vague answer did not sound any different from what he had written in the course documents, so his answer failed to offer much clarification.

Ves inwardly shrugged.

"Let me continue with my lecture before you ask any further questions. While I am principally open to interruptions, 1 advise you to make careful use of this privilege. I believe I can answer many of your doubts once I have concluded this lesson. Miss Striker?"

"Yes, Professor?"

""Bring in the Pacifier. It is time to let my students experience what it is like to be in the presence of a real living mech."